Facebook officials admitted on Thursday that the tech giant stored hundreds of millions of user passwords in plain text -- able to be read by employees.
"As part of a routine security review in January, we found that some user passwords were being stored in a readable format within our internal data storage systems," Facebook's vice president of engineering, security and privacy Pedro Canahuati wrote in a post on the company's website Thursday morning.
(STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images)
"This caught our attention because our login systems are designed to mask passwords using techniques that make them unreadable," he added. "We have fixed these issues and as a precaution we will be notifying everyone whose passwords we have found were stored in this way."
The company did not say why it waited...

Thousands of people, some seen clinging to rooftops and tree branches, still await rescue from rising floodwaters in Mozambique, one week after an intense tropical cyclone walloped the southeast African nation.
Nearly 350,000 others are at risk of becoming trapped in the coming days as remnants of tropical cyclone Idai dump rain over low-lying areas already inundated with swelling rivers and bulging dams.
Some 100,000 people may need to be rescued from the town of Buzi alone, according to a spokesman for Mozambique's Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development.
"We have a critical situation in Buzi," the spokesman, who asked not to be named, told ABC News via telephone Thursday. "If the rainfall increases, then those 100,000 need to be rescued. Levels of the dam are going h...

New Zealand's prime minister announced that assault rifles, such as the ones used last Friday in the massacre at two mosques in Christchurch, will be banned from the country once approved by the parliament.
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"Today I am announcing that New Zealand will ban all military-style semi-automatic weapons. We will also ban all assault rifles. We will also ban all high capacity magazines," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday local time. "We will ban all parts with the ability to convert semi-automatic or any other type of firearm into a military style semi-automatic weapon."
Ardern said she expects the gun laws to be passed by ...

A father and daughter who allegedly fabricated a story of a panhandler stabbing his wife to death when she gave them money were extradited to Baltimore early Thursday to face murder charges.
Keith and Valeria Smith were brought back to Maryland by the Baltimore Police Department's Warrant Apprehension Task Force after being caught in Texas earlier this month while attempting to make a run for the Mexican border, authorities said.
The father and daughter arrived at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport shortly after midnight and were immediately driven to the Central Booking Intake Facility in Baltimore, police said.
Baltimore Police Dept.
Keith and Valeria Smith return to Baltimore from Texas to face justice for the alleged killing of his wife, March 21...

An "emotionally exhausted" Meghan McCain again defended her father against President Trump Thursday on "The View," saying she doesn't "expect decency" from his family.
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“I don’t like coming here every day and having to do this, as all of you know. It’s extremely emotionally exhausting,” she said at the top of the show.
"I don't expect decency from the Trump family," she added.
During an official White House event at a tank manufacturing plant in Ohio on Wednesday, Trump spent nearly five minutes bashing the late Sen. John McCain because he didn’t receive credit for his funeral arrangements.
“I gave him the kind o

The FBI is joining a criminal investigation to look into the certification of the Boeing 737 MAX 8, as new details from last year's Lion Air crash raise questions about pilot training on the now-sidelined plane.
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Sources familiar with the matter said the FBI is working with other federal authorities to look into the certification of the Boeing 737 MAX. It is unclear how much of a role the FBI -- and federal prosecutors from the Justice Department -- will actually have in this effort, as the investigation is in its earlier stages.
Meanwhile, more details emerged on Wednesday about last year's Boeing 737 MAX 8 crash in Indonesia, further expos...

It's been over a week since "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett pleaded not guilty to charges he lied to police about being the victim of an alleged hate crime in January.
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Now, "Empire" co-creator Lee Daniels is revealing a bit about how he and the show's cast are dealing with the fallout.
"Oh my god ... these past couple of weeks have been a freakin' roller coaster," Daniels said in a brief video posted to his Instagram on Wednesday night to promote the show. "We have -- me and my cast -- experienced pain and anger and sadness and frustration and really don't know how to deal with it, you know?"
Daniel...

A coastal storm is forming near the North Carolina coast and is expected to move up the coast Thursday into Friday.
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The nor’easter will bring heavy rain, damaging winds and heavy wet snow to the Northeast.
Ahead of the storm, numerous states from Virginia to Vermont, are under flood and heavy snow alerts.
ABC News
Heavy rain was forming off the Carolina coast on Thursday morning.
Heavy rain will spread into Washington, D.C., and the Mid-Atlantic area Thursday morning, and then move into Philadelphia and New York City by the afternoon and evening.
Some of the worst flooding is forecast for Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia l

President Donald Trump announced to reporters at the White House that the Islamic State in Syria would be "gone by tonight."
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He made the announcement with some fanfare, unfurling a big piece of paper that he had carried out with him to Marine One. He then guided the press through two maps of Syria and Iraq showing the progress of the Islamic State’s defeat.
"I brought this out for you -- this is a map of everything in the red, this was on election night, in 2016, everything red is ISIS. When I took it over it was a mess now on the bottom it's the exact same. There is no red," Trump said, pointing his finger at the different parts of the map.
"I

It's Thursday, March 21, 2019. Let's start here.
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1. No 'thank you'
President Donald Trump attacked John McCain again on Wednesday, telling a pro-military crowd in Lima, Ohio, that he "was not a fan" of the late senator.
"I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which, as president, I had to approve," Trump said. "I don't care about this. I didn't get a thank you. That's OK."
Trump's speech was supposed to be a victory lap, touting the revival of a tank factory that nearly closed during the Obama administration, but employees there were largely silent while listening l...